Tolumnia Genting Orange
 

I purchased this one from Hausermann's almost three months ago and it arrived with the start of a spike. The flowers opened last week. There are 26 blooms, and they are slightly fragrant. The flowers all start out yellow, but develop spots and an orange hue over the course of a week.

One odd thing about this blooming, is that the flowers all look very different from each other (see attached photo). While the one clearly deformed type (no skirt at all) may be the result of me using Superthrive while the spike was growing, the rest look 'normal' just very different from each other.

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How pretty, I love Tolumnias! Neat how each bloom is different, you'd think they were each from a different plant!

cute! interesting how different they are

Oncidium alliance does this from time to time. I have one similar. No insect damage during inflorescense development or virus', or cultural difference during growth. But here s something similar.....

Cool to see all the different colours. I didn't know they changed colours. Very interesting!
The only one I have is Twinlke Red & it does not change colour.
Thanks for posting,

Very nice. I have always liked Tolumnias....that have festive colors....I specifically love the polka dots on the petals

I am growing one now. Has anybody heard that they are sensitive to high PH water? Our water here in LA is very hard. I've been growing mine in it for the last few months, and it seems to be doing ok except for the mineral scales on the leaves.
Also, if I refresh the medium regularly will that help to negate effects from hard water?

Thanks for the help.
Andrew

What happens is the salts clog the pores of the roots and eventually it starts to take a toll on the leaves. It reduces vigor and stalls flowering. The leaves can burn especially on thin leaved plants like the oncidiums and tolumnias. Cyms leaves burn from the tips down. I use the RO water you get from the machines in front of the supermarkets. Even if you blend tap water and the RO it is still better than straight tap water. I work in the water industry and know what the water is like. It's worth the 30 cents a gallon to use the RO.

If yours has been growing fine, then nothing to change about the water. Mineral scales can be washed off.

If you mean repotting by refreshing the medium regularly, I don't think that's a good idea as roots take time to establish and frequent disturbance is not good.

I have genting orange and mine had solid yellow bloom, which I liked a lot!
It's interesting that yours are scented! maybe it has such a crazy genetic make up producing highly varied flowers and fragrance!

I've had one or two misformed flowers per spike before, but yours is very special case I think.
Also, yours is very floriferous! What's your growing condition? Mine never get more than 12 flowers per main spike (not counting the side spikes that branch off and flower some more). Some plants would make tons of buds, but eventually they will dry out and only about 9-10 of them make it to flower.

I have mine growing mounted with live moss, under a T5 fixture. The base of the plant is about 16 inches away from the lights. The lights are on 16 hours a day. I don't have air conditioning (yet) so the temp/humidity is that of the NYC summer.

I soak the orchid daily. I run my water through a Pur pitcher filter before using, and sporadically add a tiny amount of fertilizer. I'm more sure now, that the weirdness of the flowers was due to the superthrive. I've stopped adding superthrive since then. I've now had 3 flowers open from the side spikes (2 of which sadly got swiped off by the cat). But all three of those flowers were normal.

As far as the scent, it was very faint. The only reason I was able to notice it was because there were so many flowers.

Thanks for the info.
Yeah, I heard about the funky things superthrive is capable of doing! never used myself, but now I am tempted. lol

Ok, I thought mine dried out because the air was too dry but I guess it's not the case then. maybe I should try superthrive and see if I too can get abundant slightly scented mutant flowers! :rofl:

Sensational!! Love the Tolumnias.

great job blooming it!!! i think it might be because of superthrive usage. the other ones arent severely disfigured, but that may be the cause of they variation